1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to telecommunications and, in particular, to call hold centers. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to managing use of experts by callers waiting within a hold queue.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many companies provide telephone-based access to help staff, sales personnel, representatives, and automated menus via a call center. Where high telephone call traffic is typical in telephone access to a company's representatives, a PBX system receives the call and distributes the call to an automatic call distributor (ACD), thus incorporating a hold function in the call center. ACDs are often employed to provide an even and systematic distribution of incoming calls to multiple representatives. In particular, ACDs typically provide incoming calls with a direct connection to an available representative until all representatives are busy. Then, calling parties are placed in a call queue, and selectively connected to a representative once a representative comes available.
Call queues may cause frustration and ill will of consumers towards a company, particularly where excessively long waits, full queues and accidental disconnects are encountered. In order to alleviate frustrations, before a call is placed in a hold queue, a greeting message identifying the called party is played by the ACD, via an interactive voice response unit (IVRU), to the caller, indicating that the next available agent will service the call. During the holding period, music or advertising messages may be played to the caller to entertain or inform the caller of sales promotions for particular products or services. More enhanced ACD systems may offer additional services to callers, such as news, multiple selections of music, release to make additional phone calls, games while on hold, and other services that make on hold time more pleasant.
Alternatively, enhanced ACD systems may attempt to provide a caller with the information needed without the caller having to wait to speak with a representative. For example, an ACD system may allow a caller waiting in a call queue to monitor(but not participate in) other caller conversations with similar queries. In addition, an ACD system may allow a caller waiting in a call queue to listen to previous conversations with representatives with similar queries. However, while these features may provide information to a caller, the caller is still limited to hearing conversations of other callers and not receiving a direct answer to the caller's own question. Where that direct answer is still needed, the caller must still wait for an available representative.
Therefore, in view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for placing a call on hold in a first queue in a call center, but allowing a caller to select to speak with an expert while waiting on the call to be answered by a representative of the call center. By speaking with an expert, it is hoped that a caller's question would be answered and the caller would not need to wait in the hold queue.